It’s February fourteenth (14th) so I picked a Valentine's Day movie but, frankly, there was no real reason why this was a Valentine’s movie. Yes, the events took place on February fourteenth (14th) and they throw in some heart-paraphernalia, but if you took away the Valentine’s aspect of this film it wouldn’t make a significant difference. This could just as easily have been an Easter Bunny horror flick (like we haven’t seen that before). A ridiculous film mainly due to the fact that just about every single character was useless. I love Jensen Ackles, but I’m not sure if he makes this film worth it.
⭐⭐.5
Trigger Warning PTSD, Sexual Abuse
We are quickly blasted with moving newspaper articles introducing us to the story before the story. Tom, played by Jensen Ackles of Supernatural fame, the mine owner's son, makes a mistake that leads to a bunch of miners getting trapped underground. The only survivor of the incident is a man named Harry but the evidence suggests that Harry murdered his fellow miners (with a pickaxe) so that he could conserve the limited air for himself. Harry had been in a coma for a year to the day of the incident (which randomly took place on Valentine’s day) when he suddenly wakes up and goes on a(nother) killing spree. A bunch of teens/young adults were hanging out at the mines (because I guess that’s what you do when your town has mines) and Tom, oddly enough, attended the event because his girlfriend, Sarah, wanted him to go (and who cares about his dark history there, right?). Friends Axel and Irene were already there when suddenly they are all attacked by Harry who is now decked out in a mining suit, mask, and wielding his signature pickaxe. Harry kills many if not most of the folks hanging around the mines before Sarah, Axel, and Irene are able to drive away, leaving Tom for dead. Luckily, the sheriff arrived just in time to shoot Harry and save Tom. The poor traumatized guy sat there on the ground in shock while the sheriff ran after Harry and we are taken ten (10) years into the future. Axel is the new sheriff in town and he is married to Sarah. Right away, though, we learn that he is cheating on his wife with someone she works with, Megan. Megan has big news for Axel, she’s pregnant (this is slightly random because it never comes up again not in any way, shape, or form)!
Tom has been away for the past decade but is back in town because his father has died and (while he missed the man’s funeral) Tom is here to sell the mine. The townspeople are not happy about Tom being back, especially if he’s going to sell the mine. At a motel that Tom is staying at he crosses paths with Irene who is being secretly recorded by a man who then treats her like a prostitute when she discovers his camera. When Irene tries to confront her abuser, a man in a mining suit and mask emerges with a pickaxe and kills the man who crossed her… But then he goes after her! While Irene is able to hide and even briefly fight back, in the end she’s killed by the mysterious man. The next day Tom visits Sarah at work and they have an awkward conversation. That night Sarah and Axel fight about Tom, Axel telling her to stay away from him, but that very next day when Tom approaches her again she goes off to talk with him. Tom never brings up the fact that he was left for dead, which I think is crazy, especially because Sarah is standing there hurling accusations at Tom about him running away and other bullshit… When she literally ran away and left him for dead? Every character in this movie treats the other characters like trash, it’s wild. The only person who is actually nice is Sarah to Megan, which is just sad. Megan confidently cheating with a man who has not just a wife, but a son, makes both Megan AND Axel scumbags.
Tom decides not to sell the mines, all because Sarah yelled at him and told him not to sell. He needs to discuss this so Tom is now going back to the mines to look for the man he needs to talk to. Somehow, though, while he and the guy escorting him are alone, the killer shows up! He locks Tom in a cage then murders the worker. When the other miners arrive they blame Tom for the death, but Tom was in a cage! Tom is certain that the killer is Harry so Axel takes them all on a field trip to where he believes Harry is buried. The problem is that Harry isn’t there anymore, so, what happened to him? Did someone take him, or did he get up and move on his own? Tom investigates around the mines and finds Axel’s fuck pad. The next day (after another death) Axel puts a security detail on his house but not on Sarah’s work, which is dumb, because that is where the killer ended up going next. Sarah and Megan tried to stay away from him but somehow he was able to get from outside the office door (inside) to the back alley quickly enough to grab and kill Megan. She had it coming for cheating and being shady, but wow, pretty wild. Sarah lets Axel know that she has known for a while about him and Megan… So why was Sarah so nice to Megan? The killer breaks into Sarah and Axel’s house (where their kid is) and the nanny is murdered which is pretty unfair, all she did was her job! The old sheriff was also killed. For some reason Sarah is just trusting to get into a car with a guy she hasn’t talked to in a decade, so when Tom calls and asks her to trust him she just does. It’s genuinely so stupid. Axel calls her because he finds out that Tom has been institutionalized for years and Axel is pretty certain that Tom is the killer now. Sarah tells Tom she wants to get out of the car but he starts to scare her, he tells her Axel is the real killer. Sarah causes a car accident which almost gets them both killed (a dumb move since she has a kid at home).
She runs away from the crash and gets to Axel’s fuck pad and finds evidence that points to Axel being the killer. Then the killer shows up! There is a brief chase that lands us back in the mines (of course) and Sarah is pointing Axel’s gun at Axel. This is when Tom arrives and it becomes less clear who the killer really is, so Axel instructs Sarah to shoot them both. No matter who the killer is, if she shoots both men she is going to be a lot safer than if she leaves them both standing there ready to overtake her at any moment. As soon as Axel suggested she shoot them both I knew he wasn’t the killer. It was then that Tom let slip information that only the killer could have known... Things get a bit trippy here because Harry appears, but he is only visible to Tom… Because apparently Tom has Harry’s spirit inside him. The two (2) men fight and Sarah was pretty fucking useless. She had a gun and knew that Tom was the killer but was too sad to shoot him. Dumb! It got Axel stabbed violently which I’m shocked didn’t kill him. In the end, there is one (1) last bullet and Sarah shoots Tom, the bullet goes through him and hits a container of gas that causes an explosion. Sarah and Axel are rescued from the mine but there is no sign of Tom because when a rescuer stumbled across him, Tom killed the man and took his uniform. Far from the cave he removes his mask and we see Tom, or I guess Harry, alive and well, ready to recover and wreak havoc once more. If only Sarah had just shot him when she had the chance! Stupid.
